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For the past few years I’ve had my polishes arranged by color. I have some dupes (and near dupes) and it just made sense to me to keep them next to each other on my nail polish rack. Recently, though, I started to think that it would look nice if the were organized by brand. Then all of the like bottles would be next to each other. Of course the first logical step in my reorganization was to dump all of my polishes onto my living room floor. And that’s what you see here in the above picture.

As I started to sort them, I decided to snap a picture of each brand, and here’s what I found…

I have a huge pile of Wet n Wild polishes. This was probably the first brand of polish I started to accumulate back in my youth. The bottles in the upper left with the white caps are OLD! I’ve got a good mix of permanent and limited edition polishes. They’re all between $1-$3, so it’s kind of a no-brainer to grab an awesome Wet n Wild polish when I see it.

I have a lot of Sinful Colors. I mean, they’re so readily available and there’s only $1.99. They are always on top of color trends. Really, what’s not to love?

My Orly polishes. I really like Orly a lot! Most of the polishes I have are neons or crazy toppers. I think of them as summer polishes.

Look at my sad little Essie collection! Three Silk Watercolors and one other one. I just tend not to splurge on Essie because I hear too many bad things about the formulas. If I can get a great formula in a $2 Wet n Wild, I just don’t want to risk getting a bad formula from a $7 Essie.

And these are my OPI polishes. The only one that I have ever paid full price for was Charmy & Sugar (third polish in the top row). The rest were either given to me or found on clearance. It just pains me to pay $9 for a polish, and they are always exempt from sales and coupons it seems. That makes me grumpy.

Nicole by OPI: OPI’s less snobby sister. The two Modern Family polishes are really stunners!

Fresh paint is available exclusively at Five Below. They tend to be thicker in formula and they’re great for water marbling and stamping. They have such awesome colors! The third polish in the top row is Sugar Crush and it’s a dupe for Essie – Shine of the Times. If I ever see this polish again in a five Below, I am buying a BUNCH of bottles.

Speaking of Five Below, that’s where you also find Funky Fingers. Okay, these polishes are sort of juvenile, but they have such fun bright colors and crazy glitter mixes! Plus, they’re only $2 or 3 for $5!

LA Colors polishes tend to be disappointing. If you’re going to spend $1 on polish, just get a Wet n Wild or a NYC. The only exception is the one in the upper left which is a lilac crelly with a bunch of glitter. It’s tough to find those in mainstream polishes.

I picked up these Finger Paints at Sally Beauty Supply. So sparkly!

The only place that sells Pure Ice that I know of, is Walmart, and I just don’t end up in Walmart that often. If I did, I would probably own more of these.

Broadway Nails are found in either Dollar General or Family Dollar. I swear I can never remember. My favorites are Space Flight (third polish in the top row), an deep blue jelly, and Hot n Sexy (bottom left), which is a dupe for China Glaze – Ruby Pumps.

I first discovered Bonita polish in Francesca’s about 5 years ago when I bought the little bottles. I now usually find them in Rite Aid or Kmart. So affordable and so beautiful! (I’ve actually bought 3 more since I took this picture.)

Yes, I only have two Zoya, both found on clearance at Ulta. They’re both great, though, and I definitely want to add to these!

I’m not sure why I don’t own more Jordana. They have such vibrant colors, and great formulas, and they’re only $2. I need more of these.

I’m a sucker for NYC polishes. Good formula, good colors, really good price. The pink on the bottom right is OLD.

I only own two Milani. The one on the right is a good 10 years old, but I still love it! The one on the left was the first black and white matte glitter polish that I ever saw, and the first time I saw it, my brain almost exploded.

I picked this Nina polish up at Sally awhile ago. The green is less awesome than I thought it was going to be. I bought the blue while I was on the hunt for the most pure and pigmented blue that I could find.

I own three Ulta polishes and they are all in different bottles. What’s up with that? The blue is really beautiful, though.

Spoiled by Wet n Wild used to be available exclusively at CVS. They’ve been discontinued, but most (if not all) of these colors are in the Wet n Wild Megalast bottles and are sold exclusively at Dollar General/Family Dollar. I was sad to see this line of polishes leave CVS, though.

I have a good pile of China Glaze. Most of these were purchased on clearance or on really good sales at either Sally or Ulta. Man, I love so many of these!

Does anyone remember Petites? These polishes are a solid 10 years old. I went through a phase where I loved each of these polishes.

Anyone remember Bon Bons either? Are these still around? Seriously, each bottle has like, four drops of polish in it.

We here in ‘Murica can’t get Joe Fresh polishes, so I picked these up a year or so ago when I was in Canada. Great little polishes! I’m definitely picking up more then next time I visit our neighbors to the north, assuming that they don’t build a wall to keep us out if Trump is elected.

Sally Hansen sure likes their different bottle shapes and various lines, huh? The first three polishes in the top row are OLD. I know for sure I got the teal one in the top left corner when I was in college. I graduated 16 years ago.

I picked up this little pile of polishes when I was in London last year. The one on the left is Seventeen, the next two are Barry M, and the two on the right are Rimmel. I like them all, but I love the Barry M polishes. If/when I get back over there, I’m nabbing more of these!

These polishes are from Old Navy. “Why would anyone buy polish at Old Navy,” you ask? I don’t know either. The metallic pink and gold are both pretty good, though.

These polishes are from Gap. Obviously I’m a sucker for polish, if I bought some from the Gap.

I got these LA Girl Color Pop polishes at Rite Aid. The neon pink on the right is my favorite neon pick of all time.

CQ2 polishes? Yeah, I don’t know either. They’re old.

Mary Kay polish. The one on the left is good as a base for French manicures or negative space manis.

Playboy Polishes…. How and why? It’s a long weird story.

I have two Color Club stripers, but only one color club regular polish! I know, that’s sad! I’m gonna fix that.

This pile of Kiss stuff was given to me. It’s okay, I guess.

Bath and Body Works polishes. I know, it’s just as weird as Old Navy and Gap. Aren’t the little bottles on the right so cute though? These are actually nice polishes, albeit old.

My only two Nails Inc polishes are magnetic and were found in a clearance bin at Marshalls/TJ Maxx/Ross. Those stores are all the same to me.

These Del Sol Polishes change color in the sun, or at least they used to. They are about 5 years old and only about half of them change color anymore. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

This tiny pile is all the indie polishes that I own! I know, it’s sad! I will definitely be adding to this pile over the next year.

These are all of my one-of-a-kind or weirdo polishes. I just threw them all into their own pile.

These are all of my Frankenpolishes. In other words, I mixed up these polish colors on my own…. Mwahahaha!

Here is my pile of empty bottles waiting for some Frankenpolish to happen to them.

And here’s my pile of base and top coats.

Here’s my whole collection after I got them all organized! Aren’t they so pretty?

And now all of my friends and family know exactly what I have in case they need to do some borrowing. I really don’t mind, though. Thanks for reading! Let me know in the comments about your collection!

Did you ever buy a polish that you couldn’t really tell in the bottle what it would look like on the nail, but you were sure it would be cool? Then you tried it and it didn’t rock your world like you thought it would. I’ve definitely done this a lot of times. One thing I have discovered is that a lot of these types of polishes take on a whole new life when you put them over black polish.

Let’s look at each of these starting with…

These polishes are from Valley Girl Lacquer, and indie polish company. Here’s the link to their etsy shop. The polishes from left to right are Profundity, Enigma, and Conundrum. These were actually a gift from my little sis. When I got them, I thought they pretty much looked the same in the bottle. My sis assured me that according to the pictures online, they would look awesome over black. And do they ever! They are all duo-chrome-ish to some degree. Enigma has the strongest 2-color appearance, as it reflects a really strong purple from some angles.

The middle chunk of polishes I have for you is a little less exciting.

None of these are really earth-shattering. I guess the thing I want to point out is that all of these colors give a nice mellow sparkle to any lighter color, but when you put them over black, it’s like POW!

Here are the next two:

They are Orly – Sky Blue-Pink and Sally Hansen Lustre Shine – Moonstone. Yeah, I don’t know why it’s called Sky Blue-Pink either, because it definitely gives off a copper color. When either of these are worn on their own, they really just look like a pearly nude polish. Nice, but super subtle. One coat over black gives a totally different look! As I said, the Orly polish gives a really strong copper color, and Moonstone turns into a really cool pink-purple-blue-green multi-chrome.

My last one is the most amazing:

This is Fresh Paint – Sugar Crush. This is what’s generally called a flaky topper. (I hate that name, but if that’s what everyone else wants to call these polishes, I guess it’s not in my power to change it. ) Flaky polishes can sort of look like glitter toppers at first glance, but they are just different, and you can tell when you apply them. Flaky Polishes are packed with tiny duo-chrome little bits that apply really nicely and evenly to the nail. They can seem a little like a holographic shredded glitter polish like Nicole by OPI – Heavenly Angel, but the application is really different. A shredded glitter topper behaves like any other chunky glitter topper: it’s a little hard to apply and can take some dabbing and finagling to get even application. Flaky polishes apply much more easily.

When I first got this, I swatched it over a neon coral, white, and black:

(These are actually my sister’s fingers.) As you can see, over the lighter colors, the effect is pleasant, but not amazing. I still remember when we were doing the swatches and I painted this polish over the black, both my sister and I were like, “Whoa!” Ever since I got this polish, I’ve been waiting for October to roll around so I could wear it over black.

Okay folks, that’s it for today. Thanks for reading, commenting, and liking. It means a lot!

Flowers. Everybody does flowers on their nails. How do you come up with some thing original when EVERYBODY does flowers on their nails? I really was itching to do something different and unique. I have these pretty things growing out side my house and I have a polish to match:

I figured I could so some swirly lines on my nails along with some cool shading and I would have something that looked like my front yard flowers. It seemed like a great idea in my head, but it was a major fail. Really, I tried pretty much every technique I could think of. I tried the one stroke technique. Total fail. (I don’t know how those people on youtube do it.) I tried using wavy cut stickers to make a wavy line. Another fail. I tried shading with acrylic paint. Fail. I tried shading with nail polish. Fail. I finally just decided that I would do something simple that looked like a flower petal on my nail and I came up with this awful look:

Ugh, terrible, I know. (Oh, and keep in mind that I was really feeling under the weather, so my head was sort of fuzzy this whole time. ) I went to bed with these ugly nails and hated them even more when I woke up this morning. Before heading off to church, I took the polish off and painted my nails black with the intention of adding some flowers after we got back from church. That’s right, I went to church with plain-black-gothic-death-looking nails.

This story does have a happy ending, though. After we got home from church, I added some flowers and my nails ended up looking like this:

I’m happy with these! I’m sad to take them off. I’ll see you tomorrow with some delicate print nails.